Here’s your sign: Teen gets public punishment

[Rocknrule]

Source: MSNBC

TEMECULA, Calif. - A seventh-grade girl got suspended from school for a week for bullying another student. Then Mom got involved, and things got worse for Miasha Williams.

During the suspension week, the 12-year-old's mother, Ivory Spann, made her daughter stand outside various schools with a poster reading: "I engaged in bullying behavior. I got suspended from school and this street corner. Don't be like me. Stop bullying."

"I don't want that kind of environment at the school my child attends, or the school any child attends," Spann said.

The suspension came May 10, after Miasha and some friends at Gardner Middle School heard that they had been insulted by another student and aggressively confronted her.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18729564/?GT1=9951

[Crunchy Frog]

1. Gosh, I wonder where the kid learned how to be a bully?

:eyes:

[habitual]

2. i don't get it, where do you think she learned it? n/t

[BikeWriter]

5. Uh, because the Mom believes her daughter should show respect?

[Exiled in America]

37. Uh, no - because her mom doesn't understand the difference between discipline and bullying.

Humiliation of a child, no matter what they've done, is never an acceptable approach to instruction or correction.

It doesn't "teach" anything other than shame. It doesn't make a child think "wow I was really wrong to bully." Typically children engaging in bullying behavior do so not out of sheer meanness or hate for other people, but rather as an inappropriate expression of legitimate troubles, anxieties, etc.

Humiliating a child in response to an inappropriate expression of these troubles does NOTHING but encourage that child to keep avoiding the ONE right option for dealing with the issues... talking to someone about them without fear or reprisal.

Humiliation does not work. Period. It doesn't teach respect. It does guarantee your child will function poorly as an adult and spent too much money on therapy later.

[crikkett]

38. I don't agree with you. A child who doesn't know shame grows into a jackass like *

Humans use public shame and fear of public shame as a way to keep each other in line. I bet that girl will never get caught bullying anyone else.

[Exiled in America]

42. Then you know very little about human development. As a social worker, I must point that out.

That girl can almost be guaranteed to continue to act out in inappropriate ways. I don't know why people always have this totally unsubstantiated notion that shame produces healthy, well behaved individuals. There is a grand total of zero evidence to support that claim, and a mountain of research in opposition to it.

Shame does not make the girl feel bad about her behavior. Shame makes the girl feel bad about herself. There's a big difference. It reinforces the feelings causing her to act out in the first place. And it sets up a relationship with her mother that is not conducive to healthy development.

This is not mere opinion. It is backed up with plenty of research. Go look for it.

[laylah]

44. Speaking as a Social Worker also

this mom's actions may have gone to the extreme; however, at least she is trying something to get her kid to "get it right". Shame has its' place. Example, my youngest "Just wait 'til you have kids of your own" child, who was raised in a very positive, supportive environment, stole mascara when she was 14, got rude with the security guard, had to be handcuffed to the table leg, and when she stepped out of the cruiser at home, my only words were "shame on you!". That is the ONLY time I ever spoke to my child that way but she deserved it, imvho.

Another time, she ran. She had run 3x before, wouldn't follow rules, lied, cheated, you name it. I found out where she was (on a high school campus). I called the local Sheriff's office, asked them to embarrass the hell out of her, to include cuffing her. Well, the nabbed her, spread her over the trunk of the cruiser, searched her and her backpack, cuffed her and took her to the local detention site, all in full sight of her friends. Parents were/are required to immediately pick their kiddos up from the site; however, it wasn't "convenient" for me for about 6 hours. This was 10 years ago...and we didn't have a LICK of trouble from that kid ever again.

Drastic measures are sometimes necessary. If my kid is humiliated for 6 hours and it changes bad, destructive behavior for a lifetime, I consider it a success! And, trust me, my kiddo has very good self-esteem.

[Exiled in America]

45. "Shame" is not the same as "remorse."

And shame may not be the same as humiliation, I'm not sure.

However, what you're talking about is remorse. Even saying "shame on you" really doesn't translate to taking action designed to humiliate a child into changing behavior. "Shame on you" translates into "you should feel remorse for what you've done, and understand why it was wrong." And the better you convey the latter, the more effective it will be.

What you didn't do its set up some form of public humiliation for your child to "teach" her to behave. I would only hope that's because you know better and understand that it is not effective, in fact it is counter-productive.

I don't accept the "at least she's trying to do something" argument. Doing the wrong thing is not by default better than not doing enough. So no, I don't take comfort in the "at least she did something" line in this instance anymore than I would if her response had been to beat her child.

By the way, in terms of the potential emotional damage that humiliation tactics create, there is often little difference between humiliating a child and punching them in the face.

Drastic measures are sometimes necessary. But somethings are always right out. For example, I will never support kicking the crap out of a child in the name of "necessary drastic measures" and neither would the State.

[kestrel91316]

80. That child was forced to show public remorse. We need a little more of that.

[Exiled in America]

81. "Public remorse" does not require humilation, which is never an effective tool of correction.

There are a lot of ways to have the child experience consequences for her actions. Some of these ways might even be uncomfortable. Having to write letters of apology to the victim, to the school administrators, to teachers. Having to go to the victim's family and apologize - these are just a couple of examples of other possibilities.

Experiences like that may be uncomfortable and/or embarrassing for the child, but they are designed to teach responsibility to think of the consequences of the choices we make. It is not focused on humiliation as the sole means. Humiliation is never an effective means to any end. It only becomes and end unto itself. It doesn't "teach" relational responsibility, it doesn't teach why or how certain behavior is wrong. It may keep the child from a certain specific behavior, but it does not teach anything that changes the perspective of the child or the underlying attitude of the child.

Its the difference between raising a child by saying "don't do this because if you do you'll get in trouble and hate the punishment" and saying, "don't do this because its wrong, and I want to teach you how and why it is wrong and help you see the negative consequences and hurt connected to the wrong thing." Yes yes, can be punitive consequences for bad behavior too, but it should be connected to attempts to teach why certain behaviors are good and others not good.

I'm all for making children face accountability and responsibility for their behavior, including making restitution to people when they mistreat them in some way. But the problem with the humiliation tactic is that it just simply doesn't work. It may stop one specific event from happening again. But it doesn't stop the pattern and it does do harm to child development. We need to better teach parents effective ways to discipline their kids.

[jelly]

85. I think the mother did the right thing.

The girl was probably humiliated *and* ashamed of herself. Shame is a healthy response to our own bad behavior. It shows that we understand that what we did is wrong, and helps ensure that next time, we will act differently. The trouble with some kids is that they bully but as long as it is done within the safety of their own circle of friends, they are never forced to feel ashamed of their behavior. Quite the contrary, within their circle of friends, the behavior may be seen as cool and funny. However, deep down inside I think most of these kids know that the behavior is vicious and cowardly, and would be condemned by society at large. By making her daughter flaunt what she'd done to people outside her circle of friends, she forced her daughter to confront her own inner feelings of shame that might have otherwise laid dormant.

[Crunchy Frog]

49. Thank you.

I had no idea my post would get so many responses. I agree with people that bullying needs to be dealt with. Heck, I was on the wrong end of lots of bullies growing up. I just think this mother's response was not the best way, and may be indicative of a disfunctional way of relating to her daughter that may have modeled that destructive behavior pattern, or helped produce a rage that she now takes out on other kids.

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[proud2BlibKansan]

55. Great post!

This special ed teacher agrees with you 100%

[xxqqqzme]

50. You are right about one thing,

That girl will be certain she is never caught bullying again!

[crikkett]

52. see post #36 about how the mom is going to organize HS rallies

against bullying.

This is more than just a single episode of punishment.

[Triana]

58. IMO the Mom is doing the right thing....

...bullying is a HUGE problem in schools and STOPPING it starts at home with the parents. Kudos to one parent who is properly stepping up to her role in fixing this problem. That's more than most parents do.

The kid may need counseling for getting to reasons behind why she bullied in the first place, but doubtful she'd need it for having to carry a sign about it. She'll modify her behavior and maybe Mom can get her counseling for her anger and abuse issues (ie: what's behind the bullying in the first place). That would be the compassionate thing to do for the kid. Mom seems to be letting her daughter know in no uncertain terms that her behavior was unacceptable and that she (Mom) is quite serious about stopping bullying in schools.

Will everyone agree that this was the perfectly apropos thing to do, exactly? No. And no matter what the Mom did, everyone never will. She is doing what she thinks is best, she's doing what most parents won't, and she's teaching her daughter valuable lessons and helping to alleviate a huge problem in schools today. Is it perfect? Is it "right"? Depends on who you ask.

Overall though, Good for her.

[leftynyc]

62. I'm in total agreement

Shame won't kill this girl. Good for Mom for showing her daughter there are consequences. Bullying is a real problem and whatever works is fine with me.

[Exiled in America]

66. I could say everything you wrote if the mom had chosen to beat the girl to "teach" her -

- and I'd be just as wrong as you are now.

I don't understand where the wrongheaded thinking in this society comes from that leads people to believe that any action is good action. If the story had been about a mom who was so distraught to find out her daughter was bullying that she decided to beat her as punishment, no one would be saying "hey kudos to the mom for doing more than most parents do. Yeah, not everyone will agree with how she chose to handle it, and no matter what not everyone will. It's all relative man. Who can say?"

And the only reason people are comfortable about saying things like that about using humiliation as a disciplinary tactic is pure ignorance.

The child may, as you suggest, "modify" her behavior just like she would likely modify her behavior of someone kicked the crap out of her as punishment. But she'll do it for all the wrong reasons, and fail to learn all the right lessons. Now that's not just "some bloke's opinion." That's just basic human behavior in reaction to certain encounters. It's not complicated or "uncertain" to anyone with expertise in social behavior. It's entirely predictable, and you can trace the pattern.

There are a lot of ways for the mother to let your daughter know in no uncertain terms that bullying is unacceptable. Certain ways however, are harmful to the child. We all know that letting her daughter know bullying is not acceptable by punching her in the face or having sex with her are unacceptable. The problem is that in this society people are totally ignorant about the fact that psychological abuse is every bit as much abuse as hitting or sexually molesting a child.

Deliberate humiliation is abuse. Period. The scope of the infraction may be large or small (i.e. the humiliation may be minor or major) but it is abuse just the same. So, this particular instance of humiliation may not be enough to ruin the childs life, just like getting punched in the face once by a parent may not be enough to ruin someone's life - but the act itself is still abusive. That's not "my opinion." That's the opinion of the entire field of social work. And its backed up with enough case data and research to sink a ship.

It's also time at this point to find out whether or not you have children of your own. That makes a major difference in a person's insight level as well. Do you?

[Crunchy Frog]

69. I've been amazed at some of the attitudes towards children

that I've seen on this "progressive" site. Not just in this instance, but in all those posts defending Alec Baldwin's behavior towards his daughter. There seems to be some huge blind spots among progressives when it comes to the emotional well being of children.

I'm not a parent, though am hoping to become one. I have been a child though, and have experienced both bullying by other children, and being shamed and humiliated by adults. I can't think of any experience in my life that's been more painful than being shamed and humiliated by an adult as a child.

[Exiled in America]

82. Yeah, that stunned me too.

I was incredibly suprised by reactions to the alec baldwin thing.

[silverojo]

91. As a victim of bullying

I applaud this mom for doing something to make sure her daughter is never bullied again.

I'm against physical punishment, but I get tired of people coddling their kids so much, that the kids think there are no boundaries or rules in life, and they can just force their wishes on others.

Saying "no-no" just doesn't do it sometimes. This kid needs to feel the shame she has inflicted on other kids, so she'll understand why bullying is wrong. It's not psychological abuse; telling a kid "I wish you'd never been born" is psychological abuse. Something had to be done here. If you just suspended the girl for a week, she'll equate bullying with a nice vacation.

Funny how the "compassionate" people never take a moment to think of how the bullied kid(s) feel...THEIR shame, THEIR fear of going to school, THEIR psychological abuse.

Quit blaming the victim, and let the punishment fit the crime.

[kestrel91316]

79. "Shame on you!" and "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" were

highly effective forms of behavior control when I was growing up. You think that was abusive???

No wonder some children are such brats and grow up into such horrible adults........

[sandnsea]

7. My thought too

Humiliate your child to teach them not to humiliate. :crazy:

[JerseygirlCT]

24. Have to agree. Far better to have taught a lesson in empathy

and have her apologize sincerely to her victim, and perhaps get to know her/him.

The behavior we model is what they learn from. And mom's decision there was not a good one.

[crikkett]

40. I don't think that works for kids,

but then I decided not to have children of my own, because I was afraid of being a bad mother. So I will now shut up and let the actual mothers talk!!

(with respect)
C

[JerseygirlCT]

46. You know, it probably depends a great deal on the kid

but there might also be a bit of chicken and egg about it -- perhaps more sensitive and sympathetic parents raise kids with a greater tendency that way?

Mine would respond well to the talk and explanation and apology, and not at all well (long-term) to this mother's idea.

So I suppose that's where my thought comes from.

[crikkett]

61. .

:hug:

[LostinVA]

30. Where?

:shrug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

57. Ya think?

[Matariki]

67. What you're saying is obvious. The mother seems like a bully herself.

It's surprising people would argue about your statement. People who think 'shame' is someting children need to learn are terribly misguided at best.

[jelly]

86. How is it misguided to believe that children should feel ashamed of their bad behavior?

Or perhaps we refer to different things when we refer to children (and people in general) feeling shame in response to bad behavior. To me it's synonymous with asking that people have a conscience. I want kids to be troubled by their conscience when they engage in cowardly bullying behavior.

[michael1951]

70. Is that the same Ivory Spann who appears in 1997 news stories from Portland Oregon?

Take a look at this link. http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/PPR11/QFLASH11.HTML It seems to say that Ivory Spann was 23 years old in 1993, but in fact I think it might mean to say that she was 23 years old in 1997 (at the time the money was awarded). In which case, since the current news stories identify Miasha's mother as being 34-years-old, I really suspect that these two West-Coast women are one and the same (especially since "Ivory Spann" is a fairly unusual name).

Why do I bring this up? Because it goes to show how things can linger around forever on the Internet. If Miasha's mother was unjustly beaten by a police officer some fourteen years ago (when she was just eight years older than her daughter is today), then she certainly deserved every penny that she got. But Miasha is in a different position, because she is being publicly humiliated for something that she did wrong.

In this digital age, it seems that things never disappear. Just like this old newspaper article about Ivory Spann. Only today it's even HARDER to make things disappear. So this 12-year-old girl's name and photograph are now digitized for the whole world.

Why is everyone assuming that Miasha might need "therapy" in ten or twenty years? Or something like that? For all any of us know, in just five years she might be acing a few Advanced Placement exams and be applying to who knows what universities! And then this sort of public shaming that will never be erased from the Internet comes back and bites her. Maybe it won't, and I agree that some shaming was probably needed, but I think it should have been in writing a report and apology about bullying and having to read it to a full assembly at her middle school. That would have shamed her in front of her peers but it would also have protected her privacy and kept what happened in the school inside the school.

Incidentally, about being "Suspended from School and this Street Corner" I get the sense that Miasha and the other girls who got in trouble with her may have been hanging out a little too much on that very Street Corner near the school, so now Miasha is grounded and won't be hanging out on that Street Corner (or any other).

Oh, and as far as reading reports and apologies to a student assembly, let's remember that Miasha and her friends confronted the "victim" (nonviolently, but apparently they scared her) about a racial slur the "victim" had allegedly made about Mexicans. So maybe the "victim" (if she's guilty, though of course we don't know that) should be up there alongside Miasha at that student assembly, reading a report and apology about how racism is the ugliest of all forms of bullying.

My heart goes out to this girl. She's obviously very much a minority in this school (as the photograph shows) and she was trying to defend another minority against racism. She and her friends made a very bad mistake that could have gotten out of hand by confronting the "victim" six-against-one. Some kind of one-on-one discussion would have been much smarter, and they should all be punished (and the "victim" most severely of all, if she in fact made racist statements), but it should be through public shaming in front of a student assembly, not in the newspapers and now permanently for Miasha on the Internet.

[Trillo]

89. I'm glad somebody mentioned the lack of punishment

for the claimed instigator (what you attributed as "victim"). If the report is true, which we don't know, then the punishment for only Miasha is unfair and unjust and inequitable.

I still believe that once any compulsory school, private or public, decides to suspend, the child should be released from further compulsory schooling.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. It's a SIGN, all right

But I can't say it's a good one.

--p!

[greyl]

4. "I got suspended from school and this street corner." ? nt

[tomreedtoon]

6. Why didn't Mom just execute the girl?

That might be the only real involvement this stupid mother had in her child's life, and the only significant step she would have in her life.

Face it, people. Bullying is as much a part of life, and as unpreventable, as death, taxes, aging and bad hot dogs in movie theatres. Nothing will stop it. Instead of going on a futile PC hunt for "bullies," it might be better if teachers or parents tried to protect the kids who are bullied and give them some emotional defenses. But then again, that might involve parents taking responsibility for raising their kids, and it would assume that teachers actually want to help and protect their students. Forget it.

[Lorien]

9. Well, I think she WAS trying to take responsibility for raising her kid

not the best sign, but I'm glad that she took SOME kind of action. I was bullied incessantly as a child for a facial deformity and speech impairment. Teachers and parents generally turned a blind eye to it then just as they do now. The kids being bullied shouldn't be the only ones who are addressed. It shouldn't be a matter of "life sucks, get over it"; I think we can do a hell of a lot better than that! If 10 kids are bullying one child, what "emotional defenses" do you propose to give that child when no one will stand by their side?

Bullying should never be an accepted behavior, period.

[ProudDad]

16. Bullying is NOT a part of life

You're blaming the victims. bullying is bullshit.

it's a form of assault. For adults it means jail time. The earlier bullies learn this, the better off they are.

There SHOULD BE zero tolerance for bullying -- in school, in workplaces or in the home.

I'm of two minds about the punishment. It seems appropriate that the child should learn that bullying is NOT acceptable behavior. I hope that mom is following up and finding out what's bothering this kid. I've found that the bullies that I've known in my life have some rather serious issues going on with them.

[tomreedtoon]

41. When were you last in high school?

"Bullying is bullshit." Seriously, did you even GO to high school?

Bullying is the engine that drives the football team and the cheerleaders. It is the human expression of determining the pecking order, determining the alpha male, finding out who is popular and powerful versus those who are inferior and worthless.

And I'm not saying that to support bullying. In high school I WAS one of the inferior and worthless. Do you think I liked having a black football player slam me against a corridor wall and rub his ass all over my crotch, just to prove he could do it?

I didn't bother telling anybody about it, because there was nothing that would do any good. The teachers would make bland promises, then at their favorite saloon after work they'd giggle over it. The football thug who did it, IF he got any punishment, would come after me the next day with a Saturday Night Special instead of his ass. And since I was one of the inferior, worthless kids, as determined by the bullying process, of course I didn't have any friends who could defend me. People in high school don't have friends, only people they can exploit. If you'd really attended high school, you would remember that.

Besides the fact that your wimpy sociology would do no good, it would do a great deal of harm. You want to turn kids struggling to find their identities into Stepford children, maybe with mind-control chips, because you're so bothered about violence? Your ineffective cure would be another source of horrors.

So, and I do say this with utmost sincerety, go tell the people at Bob Jones University about your great gas-filled plan. They're the only ones who might listen.

[Critters2]

48. Pecking order?! Yeah, that's a progressive ideal.

:eyes:

[tomreedtoon]

54. It's real life, dude. Wake up and smell the brimstone.

And I have to ask, did you go to high school? What were you? Hammer or anvil? Naw, unnecessary to ask the question, but why do you pretend that you were not an anvil? Do you think you can wish away all that pain? Sheesh.

[Critters2]

68. And you were a hammer

And proud of it. How sad.

[tomreedtoon]

71. Quit whining. Nearly ALL of us were anvis.

I was an anvil. Your gay icon partially admits that YOU were an anvil. I'd bet 98 percent of everyone on DU was an anvil. Or didn't you read the post where I described being damn-near-raped in a corridor by a football player?

The difference is, I know and remember what happened, and I know why - some human beings are bullies, they always will be bullies, and you either avoid them or you get beaten by them. You pretend that you can "wish" bullies away by appealing to teachers or guidance counselors or cops or some other Disneyesque solution.

Or are you suggesting the Columbine solution is ideal? An anvil should get a few firearms and blow away the hammers (by cocking the hammers of guns) and blowing the bastards away)? I was not suggesting this, but if you want to follow in the bold path of Klebold and Harris, go for it, dude. Just not around me.

[silverojo]

92. In our high school, there were no hammers or anvils

Our teachers were really strict and they didn't put up with that shit. It was a great place to go to school, as a result.

[ProudDad]

73. I'm not questioning your experience

why are you questioning mine?

My brother and I were cornered in the local drug store by the Alex Ramos gang when I was in 9th grade. I know bullies...but most of the time could avoid them, especially by the time I was in High School.

I still maintain that there should be ZERO tolerance for anyone bullying anyone else and the bully should be FORCED to get the kind of therapy they need to help them with their pathology.

I take your point that the amerikan society is a sick one with a patriarchal, hierarchal pecking order. That's fucked too.

School is fucking hard enough without having to worry about your physical or mental safety from sociopaths.

"Besides the fact that your wimpy sociology would do no good, it would do a great deal of harm. You want to turn kids struggling to find their identities into Stepford children, maybe with mind-control chips, because you're so bothered about violence? Your ineffective cure would be another source of horrors."

This sentence is bizarre. What "ineffective cure" are you talking about in such a bullying manner?

As for the football player, you should have reported him. Another option would have been to organize the rest of the "inferior and worthless" to fight back. That would have been a useful skill to prepare you for the repuke revolution (of bullies).

As long as anyone remains silent this bullshit will continue.

[Triana]

60. What ProudDad said...

...Good Daddy!

[Cronopio]

20. "Bullying is part of life ..."

So is the ass-kicking the bullies get in response.

If I see someone picking a fight with a peaceful person, I consider it's open season on the person picking the fight. "Emotional defenses" don't cut it, because bullies don't stop with emotional attacks. Bullies don't respect kindness, so they should be made to live the alternative until they *learn* respect for it.

The mother was right.

[ProudDad]

74. If you continue to believe this

you buy into the pro-violence bullshit that drives bullies: "Bullies don't respect kindness".

I've known many bullies in a place you don't want to go (with guards and bars and ...) and all but the true sociopaths responded to kindnesses. There were VERY FEW true sociopaths. The other inmates were mainly scared kids on the inside.

The mother's punishment seemed to be an appropriate attempt to give the child a learning experience as well as serving as an appropriate form of restitution for the kids she bullied. I still suspect that there are issues between the mother and daughter that should be resolved or the "punishment" won't stick.

[undergroundpanther]

77. Hell yeah

It's how you draw social boundaries and make it clear to little sociopaths you cannot get away with being an asshole without it costing you.
You see sociopaths have no internal controls on themselves,they don't feel shame or remorse like most people can so YOU gotta step up and be that boundary maker in any way that gets it through the bullies head that they will not get away with abusing people . If you do not step up and get that message through crystal clear,and you by stand innocent peaceful kids get traumatized and it hurts for a very long time.
What is the usual tactic for dealing with a bully in our sick society?? Do nothing or excuse the bully,and so after he tires of abusing your kid,he just finds another target to tear apart as everyone looks away.

This shit is not working.
Try another tack,draw a boundary speak in in the language the bully understands, Become a threat to the bullies continuing their favorite activity, show no tolerance or pity for abusers.

[bluestateguy]

8. School bullying should not be tolerated

I can't say that this is the punishment I would choose if I was a parent, but I will not oppose this punishment either.

[habitual]

10. sometimes bullies meet someone who isn't afraid of them...

like this guy...

http://www.sikclips.com/vid443_Bully_Gets_What_He_Deserves

i wouldn't promote this kind of reaction to bullying, but the bully really pissed this guy off who watched him be vicious to a group of people and showed him what it felt like.

[TankLV]

12. I would certainly recommend this!

So after the episode airing - were the commentators outraged at this wonderful civilian who gave this bully his just deserts?

I'd give the guy a medal of freedom!

Gotta stand up to bullies the only way they understand. Period. Good for the last guy in this film...

As for the original OP - I really don't know - on the one hand, it is kind of mild, but on the other, the kid needs serious counseling and this may exacerbate the situation in the future...

But there are a lot worse things that the parent could have done - like ignore the situation altogether...

While it may not be the best way - even far from a good way, I can't be too terribly upset that at least some form of PUNISHMENT is being meted out...

[Buddyblazon]

19. This is how I dealt with one of my bullies when I was 12...

I moved to a new school and was bullied for the first six months I was there. I was beaten up several times...by several different assailants. Never once did I swing back.

Until one day I realized, "Heck...these guys are just going to keep pounding on me.".

The next day, one of my more consistent tormentors stepped up to me in the lunch room in front of everybody, announced, "I'm going to beat the crap out of you again today after school.".

Without thinking, I stepped up to him...and punched him square in the teeth. He dropped, covered his mouth with his hand, and when he saw the blood, started crying. Right in front of the lunch room.

Not only did he never bother me again, but neither did any of the other bullies.


Now I don't condone violence. And I have rarely in my life laid hands on another individual. But I'm sure as hell not sorry I punched him in the mouth. Most bully's are wimps. Once he and his ilk saw I was not going to sit idly by and let them pound me...they no longer wanted a piece of me.

Unfortunately, some people only understand violence.

I felt horrible immediately after wards. But in retrospect in the decades that followed...I'd do it again. This time I wouldn't let six months of bloody lips, black eyes, scrapes, bruises, stolen lunch money and months of sleepless nights and stress pile up before I gave them a taste of their own medicine.

[fasttense]

27. My 15 year old niece had something similar happen

in a new school. She responded by bringing a knife to school. She said she was going to take revenge. Luckily, someone spotted the knife before she used it on her assailants.

Sometimes treating violence with violence doesn't work.

[Igel]

39. I did something similar.

On a school bus. I just hauled off and punched the guy in the mouth; his head hit the window, hard, and all hell broke lose as the guys' friends tried to stop me from making hamburger out of his face. Before they could hit me, however, the bus driver had stopped and was heading my way.

We got to school and the bus driver had to tell the principle. He told the guy with a bloody shirt to go to class, he was going to be late so he'd better hurry. The principle said he had nothing to say to me except to get cleaned up, and he gave me a hall pass good for all of first period.

The bully and his comrades stayed away from me; no more problems in junior high, in spite of the fact almost any of them could have taken me in a fight.

Sometimes when there's nobody to protect you you need to furnish your own protection.

[Marrah_G]

76. If you did that now you would be expelled

No tolerance. Kids can be bullied incessantly, picked on, teased and cannot fight back without getting in trouble. My youngest son is taunted and tormented daily. Its not his fault, he had a misdiagnosed illness as a toddler and the medicine caused him to be a bit socially slow (no fault of the docs they were trying to save his life). All I can tell him is to hold his temper and remember they are jerks and most of all to ride straight home on main roads an don't stop.

It sucks.

[haele]

11. I may not agree with the mom, but how do you control a bully?

It's obvious the mom recognizes that there is a problem; the "mean grrrl" phenomenon is not new, but teen society as it is now considers it "enforcing respect" if a girl is privileged enough to not have to control her temper. It's cool in many circles to act like a spoiled brat.
I see it plenty of times with the kidlet's peers - in fact, I suspect she bullies, because most of her friends consist of needy satellites, very little confidence in any of them. What's really odd is that most of the "mean grrlz" started out as intelligent, competent, fairly confident girls, but once they hit puberty, they apparently threw that all away to create little social "posses" that take precedence over everything else in their lives. Reality to them are their social groups. Families only exist to give them money and a place to crash when they can't be out with their group.

In most of those cases, if the parent's "nice" - which means calm and firm and consistent, they're considered cowardly ATM's, to be sneered and cursed at. Therapists are to be laughed at and lied to. Carrot and stick discipline doesn't work for these girls anymore. These girls are enraged - and fearful of not being able to sustain the appearance of being an alpha bitch.
Most parents who are able to get some sort of therapy at this point are told that the only thing they can do is to try to enforce rules at home, but let the kid do what s/he wants until they finish running into the wall they create in front of them and figure out how to walk around it and become human beings and members of a family again.
Unfortunately, most families can't afford (mentally, physically, and financially) to just let the kid go like that for more than a few months without falling back to the "bad old days" practices of their grandparents - yelling, shame based punishments, and other forms of escalations - which even though they end up working, they might (or might not) leave emotional scarring on an already emotionally unstable teen.

So how would a mom at the end of her rope get through to her defiant bully and that kid's social peers to shock them into the real world?

This action might be effective on the surface - and despite our disapproval at the method, that might be the only result that mother can realistically expect at this point in the kid's life - even at the risk of the costs of therapy 10 or 20 years further down the road, depending on how emotionally even tempered the kid ends up after s/he makes it through an obviously rocky adolescence.


Haele

[annabanana]

22. Good post.

The "Paris Hilton" syndrome is celebrated by the tabloid shows. Why should we be surprised when it manifests itself in High School and Jr. High? Even though I'm not crazy about the "solution" that the mother came up with, I'm heartened by the fact that she didn't defend her daughter's "right" to act like a spoiled brat (which is all too often the case).

[truebrit71]

43. Simple, beat the sin out of them...

:sarcasm:

[drm604]

13. She was suspended from the street corner?

"I got suspended from school and this street corner."

I thought maybe this was a misquote, but looking at the picture accompanying the article that's exactly what the sign says. :shrug:

[habitual]

14. yah, i admit, i don't get that either. n/t

[Hyper_Eye]

17. It is an error.

I assume that it means she got "suspended from school" and she got "this street corner". In other words she was suspended and got to stand on the street corner. It is not a good sign. But, I have no problem with the punishment.

[ProudDad]

15. It might have been better

if the sign hadn't been a grammatic nightmare...

It didn't look like she got suspended from that street corner...


PS: did anyone else notice the "color balance" in the picture???

[coffeenap]

35. Yes, I see the "color balance". Maybe there is more to the

story of her motivation.... Re: the sign: it looks to me like she was told to make the sign herself; as if she was told to tell what she did, what her punishment was, and her advice for others. So, the grammar is hers.

[oldgrowth]

18. Need more school counselors and teachers who care and pay them!!!

What they are there worth ,our kids deserve the best!!!This mother needs help!!We need to fund mental health care that Raygun flushed!!!

[Recursion]

93. Or we need to rethink our agro-industrial education model

Schools are large concrete boxes where we store children and give them vocational training until they are old enough to become producers and consumers. Hell, we still send them home every year to help with the summer planting.

[xchrom]

21. ...

:applause:

[Berry Cool]

23. Bullying should never be tolerated.

Did you know? Keith Olbermann had the same problem once Buddyblazon did. He jokes about it now, but he says there was even a list of GIRLS who used to sign up to beat on him after school. Why? Because he was the youngest in his class, even if he wasn't the smallest, and for a long time it never occurred to him that he might be able to whup the ass of any of these kids.

Finally, one day, he lost it, and that was exactly what he did. He said it was like Ralphie in A Christmas Story-- he just whaled on the kid. And at the end his mother even showed up! And he never got bullied again.

Bullies are cowards. They do it because they think they can get away with it. Show them they can't, and teach them some empathy. It's the only hope for getting them to stop.

[momster]

25. Bullying Girls

Unfortunately, a lot of bullying among girls isn't hauling off and hitting somebody. It's a brutal campaign of tearing down self-respect and dignity, over and over again. It's pictures taken by cell-phone in the bathroom and passed around. It's a campaign of harrassing phone calls and ripped clothes ('sorry', the bully calls and then laughs with her evil little twit friends) and what the harrassment people call 'a hostile environment.' A punch you can defend against. How do you defend your child against a psychological war zone?

My lovely, brilliant daughter suffered this for two years until I got so fed up with the run-around, broken promises and continual back-sliding from the admin that I yanked her out of her expensive private school and plunked her into the public one. It was another six months before the little brats stopped the phone calls.

The school kept telling me that 'we have no cliques here.' And 'oh, that poor child (the bully), she's having such a hard time at home.' (Daddy was divorcing his 3rd wife in 10 years and the kid was the last thing on anybody's mind.) The last straw? 'Maybe your daughter needs therapy to learn how to handle this kind of thing better.' That's when I realized they were trying to make *her* the problem because they could deal with my daughter and were essentially helpless against the instigator of the situation.

Through it all, my daughter maintained an A average and remained polite, loving and kind. But the polite, well-spoken kids tend to be the targets because they are too mature to 'act out' in response.

[Darth_Kitten]

28. They were jealous of your daughter......

....it's great that your daughter remained above it all throughout that kind of abuse and hassle.

The bullies get too much sympathy in life. Oh, their lives are so TRAGIC.

Bull. Total bull. Who cares? You don't take your crap out on innocent people.

[LostinVA]

31. Excellent post

The book "Queen Bees and Wannabes" perfectly explains this whole issue.

[Triana]

59. Blame the victim....

...that's what the private school was doing.

A LOT of schools do this when bullying occurs. They blame the victim of the bullying using excuses like "well, your kid just has one of those vulnerable personalities", or "well, maybe (s)he needs to toughen up a little...", or myriad others I've heard.

It's all bullshit. Because the schools don't want to deal with the parents of the bully kids who are often hotheaded lawsuit-weilding bullies themselves or have other family issues - as you mentioned in your post. It's easier for the administrations to wag their finger at the well-behaved kid and blame them for being "vulnerable" or for being "targets" of abuse.

Bull. What this amounts to is the kid that is the victim of bullying is victimized AGAIN by the damned school administration who REFUSES to deal with the behavior of the abusive, bullying kids - AND their parents.

Whataa load of crap.

[tblue37]

64. When my son was repeatedly bullied on the bus in 7th grade by a couple of

9th-graders, the principal suggested that he could either be driven to school or ride his bike (3 miles on a highway!) to school. I pointed out that was not possible for my ex-husband, whose schedule didn't permit it, or for me, since I didn't own a car, and that he would be hit by a car if he tried to ride his bike on the highway. Besides, I said that he shouldn't be the one forced off the bus, since the other two boys were causing the problems.

The principal was uncooperative--until I promised that the next time it happened I would sue the school. (When I say such things, it is quite obvious that I am not making an empty threat.) Then I called the bus company and promised I would sue them, too, if it ever happened again.

The problem was dealt with immediately, and the bus company installed video cameras in all the buses. All but one of the cameras were dummies, but the real camera was rotated, so no one could tell which bus was being actively monitored on any given day.

The funny thing is, I am not at all a litigious person, but sometimes you have to make them realize that the inconvenience of having to deal with bullies is way less than the inconvenience of having to deal with you.

[bleedingheart]

95. we have video cameras on our buses as well...

it has really cut back on bullying and if your kid is caught misbehaving on the bus...you are the one driving your kid to school...

[TheMadMonk]

26. FFS People. Evolution gave us guilt, humiliation, pain...

...and all the other negative feelings to let us know that what we are doing/experiencing (or have done/experienced) is detrimental to our well being.

Another discussion http://journals.democraticunderground.com/?az=hp_redir&forum=389&thread=906613&author=151115 talked about the Assault on Reason. And I think this is a part of that assault and it's one perpetrated almost entirely from our side.

Even as New Agers recoiled from the horror of The Bomb, blaming a technological society and searching for "non-materialistic" alternatives, there came the idea that reason (and reflection) alone are enough to deal with destructive and/or antisocial behaviour.

We threw out survival and socialisation mechanisms that have been with us at least as long as the backbone in the case of pain, and probably in excess of ten million years for basic emotions, eschewing the primitive/barbaric in an attempt to replace them with "scientific" mechanisms bases on pure rationalism.

Newsflash folks. It ain't working.

PAIN IS THE BEST (MOST EFFECTIVE) TEACHER.

The truly scientific (and rational) approach should have been to quantify what works and determine how best to apply that knowledge to properly instill socially acceptable behaviour.

Athletes understand this principle: "If it doesn't hurt you're not trying hard enough."

Ballet dancers dance until their toes bleed and then wrap them so the blood doesn't seep through.

The military most certainly understand, using an empirically determined system of pain and humiliation to turn civilians into soldiers.

If the aim is specialist (and all to often frivolous), Western society has no problem with resorting to "barbaric methods". But not to teach us how to live? What is wrong with this picture?

[fasttense]

34. I know your heart is in the right place but your theories of educational psychology

are all wrong.

Pain is NOT the best teacher. Did you know people and animals acclimate to certain levels of pain? They get use to it. So you keep having to up the level of pain to keep having the same impact. That is why child abuse frequently gets worse and worse. The child being beaten gets use to the pain.

There are also side affects to pain as punishment. Organisms given too much pain all at once will frequently lose control and go hysterical. The behavior being enforced will disappear because getting away from the pain is the only thing the organism can think of. Then you simply reinforce going hysterical.

Pain as punishment is universally used by humans not because it is the most effective (it isn't) but because it is the easiest to do. It is much easier for a teacher to inflict pain then to reward appropriate behavior. Pain as punishment is designed for the teacher not for the student.

[Dervill Crow]

75. This sounds straight from Dobson's "Dare to Discipline." eom

[Exiled in America]

83. Wow. That's staggeringly incorrect.

But, the first responder to your post already explained why much better than I could. So I guess there isn't anything else to say.

[LostinVA]

29. I think this is probably okay, as long as the mother talked to the child

Bullying is horrible, and most parents of bullies refuse to admit their kids do it.

[Mad_Dem_X]

32. I agree - Good for the mom

Most parents of bullies refuse to take their kids' actions seriously. I lived next door to a bully; when my parents confronted hers, all they got was crap like, "It's part of growing up" and "Your daughter needs to toughen up." Uh, no, YOUR daughter needs to stop being an aggressive jackass.

[LostinVA]

33. Exactly

[LostinVA]

36. Something else about the mother in the article:

"Spann said she also plans to organize anti-bullying rallies at high schools."

I wonder if this woman was bullied as a child -- she seems very against students behaving this way towards other students.

[Quantess]

47. Meh. The gir's mom probably doesn't know what else to do.

It doesn't sound that cruel or unusual to me.

[superconnected]

53. Social distinction is cruel. Very cruel.

I'm severely against punnishment this way.

When I was in school one of my teachers made a lesson about this very issue, where as brownie (like girl scouts) she once had to wear a sign that said, "I'm a bad brownie" in front of all the other kids during a scout meeting. She said it would have been fine now as an adult, but as a pre-teen and teen, she was super conscientious about the way she looked and the attention, which she perceived was negative. It made her stand there in fear wanting to melt into the ground. It also made her never go back to brownies again or join any other group for fear she would signaled out. She called it social distinction.

I consider social distinction as punnishment severely wrong.

I'm so sorry this teen has to live with a mother like that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

56. So Mom taught her child not to bully by bullying her?

Sorry I can't advocate public humiliation as an effective punishment.

[bleedingheart]

96. in school or out of school suspension is a type of public humiliation

yet it is frequently used...

being the kid who is missing from your regular classes all day and having to explain that you were suspended can be just as humliating...I have a close relative who created a pornographic essay for school...when he presented it to the class it created an uproar and while funny..it was wildly inappropriate and his mother freaked. He got an inschool suspension for 3 days...
after that he realized how he had embarrassed his teacher, some of his friends and how embarrassing it was to be suspended....

While it did not curb his creative talents...he did learn that there are places where things are inappropriate...

[DemBones DemBones]

63. This reminds me of the old story about the

child psychologist who began his career with six theories about how to raise children. He had no children of his own at the time.

He wound up with six children and no theories.


If you haven't raised any children to adulthood, you can't understand the difficulties of parenting. And even if you have, what worked for your child(ren) may not work for others. There are children who are easy to raise and children who are difficult to raise.


Of course, parents can let a child do whatever s/he wants but if you've ever seen the results of that, it's not pretty. Watch the news any night and you'll see at least one of them.

[tblue37]

65. BTW, about shaming: it has its place.

When my son became a pain-in-the-neck 9th-grader himself, he started giving his math teacher a bad time in class. He simply sat in the back with his buddies and sneered and rolled his eyes at her all the time. I had a standing “order” at the school that I was always available if there were ever any problems with my kids, but I never heard a word about this until I was having a conference with the gifted consultant about his program. Since he by then had become a buttheaded teen, I ended the conference by asking whether he was causing any trouble in school, because although I hadn’t heard anything negative, I wanted to make sure. She told me that the math teacher had complained about his passive aggressive eye-rolling nonsense.

So I went to see her and promised her that she would never see anything like that from him again. (She was dubious.)

That afternoon when he came home from school, I told him that I was sure he got lots of status points from his buddies when he played off the math teacher like that. Then I said, “Just imagine all the status points you will get when your Mommy starts coming to class to sit next to you every day, which is what I will do if you ever give her any sort of trouble again.”

“If you do that I will get really pissed off!” he said.

I responded, “Sweetie, just because I’m smiling at you and not yelling, that doesn’t mean I’m not already really pissed off.”

When I told this story to the man I was dating at the time, he said, “That’s all very well and good, but of course it was just an empty threat.”

I said, “What you don’t get is that my kids know me better than that. I never make empty threats.”

The next day the math teacher called me from school to thank me for straightening him out. She said she had never seen a kid’s behavior change overnight like that.

Follow-through is everything with kids. You can’t parent from a chair. You have to be willing to go where they are, both literally and figuratively, when the occasion calls for it. I have an article on my “Who’s Minding the Children?” website entitled “Adolescence: Living on Capital”:

http://www.childrensneeds.homestead.com/adolescence.html

In it I talk about the fact that kids will usually become difficult when they reach adolescence. Boys especially are designed by nature to push away from their families, no matter how close and loving their prior relationship with their parents might be. Otherwise, how could they leave their beloved mommies to go out and establish their own territory and find mates?

But our toxic culture encourages particularly nasty behavior in adolescents—both boys and girls. Any parent who has failed to build up capital—i.e., to establish that close and loving relationship marked by a clear sense of whose rules are operable—before a child reaches adolescence is going to have a terrible time of it. But if the parents have established a good working relationship with the kid before that point, then they have a very good chance of weathering the storm without major disasters.

Unfortunately, in our society many parents either don’t have the time or don’t have the inclination to work on that relationship while their kids are small, so when they hit adolescence, all hell really does break loose.

[SayWhatYo]

72. I against all punishment of any form...

Just kidding, I just said because the first time I read one of the posts further up I thought it said that and it made laugh. I just wanted to share the experience.

Anyways, I don't see any real issues with how she handled it(minus the hard to understand sign) Many parents seems to ignore their children's bullying behaviour.

One thing I'm curious about though. I noticed that there are many who say that the mother is bullying the child and should not have done this. However, I notice that very few give any alternative suggestions. For those who say "talk to them and ask them why they feel they have to bully", I ask, when was the last time you had a teenager or were a teenager yourself? I know when I was a teenager I pretty much laughed whenever my mother tried to ask me questions like that, and from what I seen, I wasn't alone in that behavior.

[NuttyFluffers]

78. many cultures believe in the value of public shaming

i always thought it was not very nice -- but then, what punishment is supposed to be nice? -- but i had to admit it was effective. in studying native american, african, and various asian and european cultures, public shaming was a valuable tool in punishment and reform. it caused pain, like all punishment is supposed to do, but it was not physically harmful or crippling. it may have been emotionally crippling, but since it was designed to emotionally cripple bad behavior the cultures that implemented this saw this as only a good thing. what i did find interesting was most of these shame based cultures utilized a reconciliation/reintergration process back into the community afterward. so after the great shame there was absolution and reeducation, a sort of catharsis and reformation process all in one.

this experience probably beats the severe whippings my folks used to get when they got in trouble in school....

[Decruiter]

84. For all the talking we Americans do, we don't say this enough!

I like the punishment.
I wish this were more a part of our "corrections" efforts in this country.
I wish the mom had thought of it instead.

[twilliams82]

88. Agreed

She was justly punished, she got what she deserved.

If this happend more often, maybe the bullying would quit.

TW

[Decruiter]

90. Thanks, t !!! And Welcome to DU!!

:D :toast: :hi:

[superconnected]

87. I've heard kids who shoot everyone at school are often

people who were bullied and shamed in front of others.

gotta do wonders for the psyche.

[bleedingheart]

94. I remember the days when your parents would punish you at home for bad behavior at school

or anywhere else...

I remember knowing that if I did something wrong at school...it meant extra work at home or no friends over.

Today I see more rotten kids whose parents will go to hell and back defending their bad behavior and you know what...the best part is it ends up biting them on the ass anyways because pretending your kid is an angel doesn't make it so...and I have seen plenty of examples of parents having to take care of their adult children and their mistakes...because they are such little "angels"

Parenting takes work and if this mother wanted to teach her daughter a lesson than it is her right to do so.

I have a son with Aspergers, right now I am having problems dealing with some behavior issues. I am working with his therapists but I have punished him by taking away his privileges. When I am dead and gone, my son will have to live in the world with the rest of the people out there and he needs to understand how to behave so that he doesn't get hurt and so that he doesn't hurt others.